AMT Relief Act of 2007

AMT RELIEF ACT OF 2007 -- (House of Representatives - December 12, 2007)

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Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I am so proud to have the opportunity to say once again that fulfilling our constitutional responsibility, the Ways and Means Committee has reported out a bill to provide relief to upward of some 25 million people from being hit by a $50 billion tax increase, which it was never thought could happen to these people.

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By the same token, almost separate and apart from this, we have an opportunity to close a very unfair provision that we find in our Tax Code, that certainly no one has come to me to defend, which prevents a handful of people from having unlimited funds being shipped overseas under deferred compensation and escaping liability. It is just plain wrong if we were talking about this by itself. But we are not doing that. We are talking about bringing something together that I don't see how anyone can be opposed.

So let's talk about the things that we all agree on. Nobody, Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative, believes that these taxpayers should be hit by a tax that we didn't intend.

Two, no one has the guts to defend the offshore deferred compensation. You may have some feelings about it because of a couple of friends, but we know it's indecent and immoral.

So what is the problem? We raise the money and we hope that, through this and others, we will be able to pay for the loss of revenue that is enacted by the patch. That is the $50 billion. I wish that I could yield all of our time to the Republicans to explain once again, as eloquent as my dear friend Mr. McCrery is, as to why this is not borrowing.

Mr. Dreier yesterday in the Rules Committee says it's not borrowing because we never intended for this to happen. Well, if it works for you guys, I'm going to try it when I get home with my creditors and say, hey, it wasn't meant for me to be broke and so it's not borrowing; just ignore it.

But it doesn't work that way on pencil and paper. Either you have got to cut programs by $50 billion, raise the revenue by $50 billion, or mumble for $50 billion. Enough of the mumbling. Can't we unite on this, and at least let them know in the Senate that the House of Representatives is the House of the People, that we believe in what we're doing? And let's remember this; that we know the President, when he is closing things that he wants to be closed on to raise revenue, it's not a tax increase. He and Secretary Paulson call it, what, a loophole closing. That's all we're trying to do in paying for this.

And so, remember, the President won't be with you in November, but I will be, trying to help all of us to understand that we did the best we could for the Congress and for the country. So we are giving the other body another opportunity. Hopefully this time they will not be irresponsible but they will join with us in doing two things: Reform the system for a provision that only benefits a handful of people at the expense of the United States Treasurer; and, two, prevent this burden from falling on 25 million innocent, hardworking American people.

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